If I'm understanding your question, yes.

A wild example to make sure I'm answering the question you're asking:

If the Company came out tomorrow and started asking each captain to hop on one foot and rotate 360 degrees in a counterclockwise fashion before entering the aircraft prior to the first flight of the day… And we didn't object… And every pilot complied with this request… Then we couldn't just stop doing it because we are disappointed in the lack of progress after 2 years of contract negotiations EVEN THOUGH there's nothing in the CBA mandating this behavior.

There's no a bright line between what is and is not a violation of status quo. It's more of a sliding scale between how long the activity has been going on and how tough it is to prove from an objective standard.

The Company might claim violation of status quo for things like: Single Engine Taxi frequency; Sick Calls; Fatigue Calls; A decrease in folks picking up open time; Longer taxi times; More logbook write-ups; More logbook write-ups in inconvenient places, etc.

The Union might claim: Inefficient trip assignments; Decrease in quality of layover hotels; Increased deadheads; Payroll errors; Increased hassle for delays; Creation of new job duties, etc.

The ability to prevail in a claim for violation of the status quo provisions will depend on the severity of the violation and the ability of the claimant to objectively prove the case. If you look at my list of Company violations, it should be pretty obvious to anyone who's paying attention that the Company has already started building a record to show that NOTHING they do 2 years from now is anything they didn't do prior to negotiations.